Sunday, April 15, 2012

Gender Specific Language

As
a general rule, it is good to remember that you should only refer to a
person by category when it is relevant or necessary to the discussion at
hand. That is, you should ordinarily view people as individuals and not
mention their racial, ethnic, or other status, unless it is important
to your larger purpose in communicating.

There are simple ways to replace gender specific language with gender neutral language (many of these are becoming widely used):

chairman … chair

manned … staffed

fireman … firefighter

policeman … police officer

stewardess … flight attendant

mailman … mail carrier

Perhaps one of the biggest issues for writers is clarity. Since
gender specific language might jar some readers out of the reading
flow, we want to be careful.

Some ways that people try to get around it is to use words like they or their to replace he or she. Anybody see the potential grammar problem?

It's when the writer doesn't continue the change to make everything match.

For example, this is gender specific:

If a patient is late in arriving, he must pay a late fee.

Try using one of these gender neutral sentences instead:

Any patient who is late in enrolling must pay an additional fee.

Patients who are late in arriving must pay an additional fee.

If a patient is late in arriving, he or she must pay an additional fee.

NOT

If a patient is late in arriving, they must pay an additional fee.

The problem with the last one is patient is singular but they is plural. The writer didn't continue the change to make everything match. It's like adorable Dobby's disharmonized socks.

Oops!

It's easy to fix by changing patient to patients.

There
are some obvious areas where writers shouldn't be guided by this modern
trend. The language in historical fiction should represent the culture
at the time the book is set.

SciFi and Fantasy writers
can pretty much do anything they want, since they're world building
anyway. Right? I love it when SciFi or Fantasy authors cleverly create
words, expletives, etc. that are a reflection of their worlds/cultures.

Can
you think of any other genres that can ignore this particular grammar
rule? Do you have ways that you're politically correct when you write to
avoid "jarring" your readers?

Around the Blogck

Once upon a time, a group of new writers got together and started this blog about their struggles, their aspirations, and their quest to become published authors.

Now, the better part of a decade later, we've been around awhile. We've learned far more , done more, and gone farther than we ever imagined we would!

Some joined us, some moved on, some became the published authors they always wanted to be, and some are still in the grind.

This is the record of where we've been, a textbook of what's been learned and a heartfelt memoir of experiences shared. Though the writers have moved on, the archives are here for you to peruse, and hopefully you'll find something in them to help, encourage and uplift.